DECISION SUPPORT AND INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS IN BUSINESS

Managerial decision making is synonymous with management. It can be viewed as a process involving four major phases: intelligence, design, choice, and implementation. These process can serve as a guide for the design of computerized decision support system.
Data are the foundation of any information system. They exist in internal and external sources, including the Internet. Many factors that impact the quantity of data must be recognized and controlled. Data frequently are transformed into information and knowledge via data warehouse. Information can be transformed into useful knowledge through analysis or data mining and can be stored in an organization's knowledge base.
Decisions can also be classified along a continuum from structured to unstructured. They can also be classified as strategic, operational, or managerial. This creates a nine-cell matrix of decision support against which problems can be mapped. DSS is a methodology that models situation for a quick computerized analysis of semi-structured and unstructured complex problems. The major components of a DSS are the database and its management system, the model base and its management system, and a user-friendly interface. A knowledge (intelligent) component can be added.
An EIS is a corporatewide decision support system designed for executives but used by others as well. It allows quick and easy analysis, communication, ad hoc report generation, and detailed inquiries (drill down). Groups DSS is a methodology for supporting the process of making decisions in a group. The members can be in one room or in several locations. The method facilitates idea generation and collaboration and lesse3ns negatives aspects of face-to-face meetings.
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) allows sophisticated querying of specialized database. Data mining refers to a family of tools based on different algorithms that can be used to discover otherwise-unnoticed relationships among data in large database.
Data visualization is important for better understanding of data relationships and for compressions of information. A geographical information system (GIS) captures, stores, manipulates, and displays data using digitized maps. A GIS can support decisions related to mapping, such as where to open a store or where to advertise.
Knowledge management refers to a process of discovering knowledge and preserving it in an organizational knowledge base for future sharing among company employees (and sometimes externally).An organizational knowledge base contains all the relevant know-how and best practices and can be reused by  employees when needed.
Idea generation is frequently necessary for finding solutions to problems. Using IT, it is possible to significantly increase the number of ideas and to facilitate brainstorming.
The primary objective of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to build computers that will perform tasks that can be characterized as intelligent. The major characteristics of AI are symbolic processing (in contrast with numerical processing in conventional systems), use of heuristics (instead of algorithms), and the application of inference techniques.Expert systems technology attempts to transfer knowledge from experts and documented sources to the computer's   knowledge base, in order to make the knowledge available to nonexperts for the purpose of solving problems quickly and effectively. The inference engine, or thinking mechanism, is a program that uses the knowledge base to solve problems. Expert systems can provide many benefits. The most important are improvements in productivity and/or quality, preservation of scare expertise, enhancing other systems, coping with incomplete information, and providing training. Limitations of expert systems include the inability to learn from mistakes, the development cost, and legal/ethical issues in their applications.
Natural language processing (NPL) provides an opportunity for a user to communicate with a computer in day-to-day spoken language. Speech recognition enables people to communicate with computers by voice. Voice-synthesis technology enables computers to reply in a humanlike voice. Voice portals provide access to the Internet by using voice via telephone. There are many applications and benefits of these emerging technologies.
Neural systems are organized and operated in a way similar to biological neural networks. Artificial neurons receive, process, and deliver information. A group of connected neurons forms an artificial neural network that can be used to discover patterns in historical data and makes predications accordingly. Neural networks are especially useful in data and Web mining in e-commerce.
Intelligent agents are software entities that can sense the environment and carry out a set of operations with some degree of autonomy, using a knowledge base in the process. They can perform many mundane tasks, saving a considerable amount or time and improving quality.
Virtual reality is a 3-D interactive computing environment that is belonging to support business simulation applications.